


Disparate Parts

by ZoeBug



Series: A Length of Twine (Prompt Jar Drabbles) [3]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: -points- Love that Adam Parrish, Character Analysis, Character Study, Drabble, Family, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Prompt Fic, Team Feels, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 20:37:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7589203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted Drabble: <em>ubuntu</em> (n.) “I am what I am because of who we all are”; compassion, kindness, and humanity that connects us together by sharing ourselves with others and caring for those around us</p><p>-</p><p>Adam Parrish knew a lot about a lot of things. But family didn’t used to be one of them. </p><p>Magician, they’d named him. Connector of disparate parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disparate Parts

**Author's Note:**

> I just love Adam Parrish a lot, okay? And I love his character development more than I could ever express. So I wrote this instead because The Gangsey as family is so important.

_ubuntu_

(n.) “I am what I am because of who we all are”; compassion, kindness, and humanity that connects us together by sharing ourselves with others and caring for those around us

* * *

 

Adam hadn't expected Cabeswater to teach him something about family.

If he were to be honest with himself, he hadn’t really known _what_ to expect with hands pressed to the damp leaves and earth of the forest floor.

But even if he’d had the wherewithal to expect something specific from his sacrifice to Cabeswater, learning something about family from a forest of magical, sentient, Latin-speaking trees would not have been it.

Adam didn’t use to know much about family.

He knew a lot about the ache hard labor leaves in muscles not-yet-finished growing. He knew on which months bills would arrive after thirty days and which after thirty-one. He knew a lot about addition and more about subtraction, about dollars and cents.

He knew a lot about silence and a lot about what it said.

He knew a lot about pain and even more about the expectation of pain. He knew a lot about drunken shouts through trailer walls. He knew a lot about how long bruises from knuckles would last on his cheekbone, on his ribs, and on his collarbone respectively. He knew a lot about the specific type of ache that bloomed in his neck from tilting it forward and down and away for hours at a time.

Adam Parrish knew a lot about a lot of things. But family didn’t used to be one of them.

Magician, they’d named him. Connector of disparate parts.

How could that possibly be? When even blood and genes and the very things that tied him so viscerally to his father weren’t enough to hold him above hate and fists and bruises. When the shape of his mother’s nose and the light freckles like hers across his arms weren’t enough to deserve a reprieve from the pain or the isolation or the fear.

If Adam’s own connections were so shattered, he reasoned, how was he supposed to fit things so different, so opposite, so strangely shaped and angled, together.

Adam was unknowable. Un-tethered and unconnected.

Jagged fragments of people orbiting each other in halting, disjointed circles. This was he knew of family.

But he learned otherwise.

If Adam had expected to learn anything from Cabeswater, he would have expected to learn about power. And he did.

But lesson number one concerning any kind of magic, Adam learned, was that everything was connected. Including power… and family, surprisingly.

Cabeswater taught him how small pieces knocked askew could block the power of the ley line and taught him how to rearrange them until it surged fluid and free once more.

And then it reached behind his eyelids and held up a mirror and taught him something more. That power comes from a stretch of united, uninterrupted points. That family is the aligning of rocks and the flow of a connected circuit, the quiet unending work of tending to and caring for.

And Adam had started to understand.

He began to feel the thrum of a ley line crackling excitedly back to full force when Gansey would bump his fist with a smile. He began to feel the subdued exhilaration of new leaves finally poking above treetops to taste direct sunlight when Blue would punch him teasingly in the shoulder. He began to feel the gradual twining of roots growing slowly together when Ronan would ghost a hand across his cheekbone.

Adam was the Magician, the connector of disparate parts. Connector of present to future, connector of here to there, connector of ley line to Cabeswater.

Connector of Adam Parrish to the rest of the world.

Connector of Adam Parrish to himself.

A Magician, Adam certainly was. But he was also many other things. He was a laughter of laughs, a teller of jokes, a holder of hands. Adam was a haver of fun and earner of respect.

Adam Parrish. Giver and recipient and _deserver_ of love.

Beloved member of this strange and wonderful family, collection of disparate parts as different and similar as could be.

Possessor of magic that had barely anything to do with magical forests or ley lines or ancient kings and everything to do with the people that loved him.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos always appreciated!  
>   
> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


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